


Somewhere in the middle there

by AmyWilldo



Series: This is not a love story, he lied [2]
Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare
Genre: BBC, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-10 10:25:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10435632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmyWilldo/pseuds/AmyWilldo
Summary: This is what happened. And what didn't. If every story has a backstory, where things go wrong, and a happily ever after, where they go right, there's bound to be a bit in the middle where it's all confused and somewhere in there, they fall in love.





	1. in which Beatrice has good intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it's too easy to take the shots, and she takes them

She hates him. She hates the fact of him. She hates that Leo can’t just trust her to do the job solo while Keith the drunken lecherous fool sobers up. Is she not competent enough to introduce the pre-film the station licences in from the Beeb? Yes, she certainly is. It’s not that much more work than it would have been keeping Keith on track. Is she not competent enough to keep on with the local colour? Yes, she certainly is. She’s stopped regularly on the street by locals, throughout the district, and complimented on her smile, her wit, her charm. She doesn’t need a co-host, and she in particular, doesn’t need him.  
Nevertheless, he’s been foisted upon her, and she has no choice. Other than, of course, to leave. She’s not going to leave. It’s her newsroom. Even if it is a little stifling and stale sometimes, and the last month or two, has reeked of cheap liquor, thanks to Keith, it’s her newsroom and it should be all hers now. She doesn’t want to share. Especially not with Benedick. He’s going to be all smug and smarmy, big city and big smoke, and snark.  
At 2am, the early morning of, she finds herself planning the conversations. If she can control them, she can minimise the damage. Keep it all professional. No personal at all, minimise how much everyone becomes his, again. His face, self assured and bearded, is the last thing she sees before she falls asleep, unsettled.  
She’s later than she would have liked to work. The whole day, she shoots arrows and they never quite hit, he’s not bothered by her snipes at his antique show, not on the outside, doesn’t show the fluster that he used to, and maybe she needs to practice more. There’s no blush.  
He’s more real than she remembers, more self assured than he used to be, and she’s more aware of him than she’d like. He’s continually perched on a desk, in his slick fabricked suits, in his musky cologne, his hair that’s unaccountably straightened hair, and his comments about middle aged women finding him attractive are definitely aimed at her, and it hurts. She’s aware that she has a shelf life on the newsdesk that he doesn’t. That Leo’s likely counting down the months until he needs to replace her. She’s very aware that she’s single, but there hasn’t been time and she hasn’t been interested in being part of the posse that hits up the town on a Friday night, Hero and Margaret and all with the lipstick and the stories, and the hook ups. She’s building a persona of a professional person and all of that doesn’t fit. But neither does the picture he’s stuck her with, cats, and grey hair and knitting, and watching antique shows.  
It’s a child’s trick, telling him he has something in his teeth just before the camera hits him, and she’s not proud, but she’s happy. The good people of Wessex are hers, at least for one more night, and she isn’t sharing. It’s worth the dressing down from Pete afterwards. She remembers the dressing downs fondly and smiles at Pete throughout.  
It hasn’t been a bad first day back, in some respects. He doesn’t mind being made to look foolish, it’s his go to persona, and what had protected him in London would certainly do the job back here on home turf, on terra normal, back in the bosom of the station that had grown him up. Tomorrow, he’d not fall for the same trick twice. He’d brush his teeth and check himself, ask Margaret the wardrobe mistress to check, not leave it to the fanged harpy across the couch to play with his head, and hope for the day when she actually found a strand of spinach in hers after.  
He'd found an empty vodka bottle stashed down the bottom of the dressing room cupboard, legacy of Keith, but no full ones, just suspicious smelling water glasses. Keith apparently wrote his scripts, such as they’d been by hand, real #oldschool, and Ben’s laptop looks tiny, out of place on the desk. Back in the day, there’d been a desktop. Probably was somewhere in storage now, or possibly down in the security team’s arsenal of IT equipment, below the desk a collection of screens with security footage, more screens than the two of them could keep track of at once. He hopes there isn’t one in his dressing room, but resigns himself to the inevitable, as long as they’re the only ones watching.  
He’s taken Claude out for a pub meal, because the emptiness of the rental’s playing with his head a bit more. Claude’s a welcome distraction, but a hot mess, every five seconds spinning back to Hero’s blonde hair, her perkiness, her smile, her other attributes, and honestly, the noise dulls out the vertigo of being back where he was three years prior and nothing having changed. It’s still Beatrice sitting over there, putting him on edge, the same kind of stories, the same local concerns, and he’s sitting over here, not knowing if he’s any different, beard notwithstanding.  
“I said, was Beatrice such a, well, you know?” and Claude waves his arm in the air ineffectually.  
“Such a she beast? Is that what you’re trying to say? Yes, even from the dawn of time, Beatrice has ever been thus: a vicious, man eating, piranha.”  
“Shouldn’t she be some sort of dinosaur? I mean, dawn of time, you said,” Claude sniggers into his pint, toying with a peanut.  
“Velociraptor then. Vicious, cunning and soul destroying. Any normal person would have said, after three years, how’s tricks, how’s things, we’ve missed you around here, but no, Bea goes straight for the jugular. That’s her. Haven’t missed that at all. I wonder if Leo’d authorise a series of out on the field reports for me, minimise the time in studio.”  
“That’s be quite sweet, really. We could do it together, old dog teaching the new dog tricks, sort of thing.”  
Benedick considers whether it’s worth unmangling Claude’s metaphor, but decides to let the ‘old dog’ comment lay where it lies, the less he thinks about the one grey hair he’d found the week before, the better. He’s only thirty. Old has nothing to do with him.  
“A price of progress thing, perhaps he’d go for that. I’ll show you round off camera. This isn’t the only pub in town, I’ll tell you that for free. This Friday, I’ll take you where the girls are. Yeah?” Ben tips his pint glass at Claude, and downs it, not waiting. “I’m off. Let sleep undo the damage Beatrice did. Velociraptor. I like it.”  
He leaves Claude, struggling to get his jacket on, and only vaguely envies him the biceps. Outside is cool, and he sets a brisk pace, walking completely past the serviced apartments by accident, and onto the street where she lives. Or used to. There’s a light on in what was her flat, and he turns back just as briskly. The apartment feels more like a fortress, once he’s in it, and he double checks the lock on the door.

She feels at the end of the week that she’s up on the score. There’s been no more last minute pranks, but there’s been no more cracks about her age, and she’s feeling pretty robust. Pretty impregnable. Pretty much queen Bea, and so when Hero says she should come out on the town, she goes along with it, with the bevy of women in the bathroom primping, and high heels, and short skirts, and when Hero whistles, and says she’d kill for her legs, and Beatrice tells her she’ll remember that and cash in the favour later in the night, she doesn’t think she’s doing too badly, not an old maid, not a lonely middle aged lady living on her own, watching sad antique shows in the middle of the night, or the very early morning. Besides Margaret, who’s wearing tight black leather, of course, there’s no comparison, and besides Ursula, covered head to toe in sensible Laura Ashley pastels, there’s no comparison either. She’s somewhere in the middle there, but at least she’s there.  
She’s not been in the club for years, not since Hero was barely legal, and before that. It’s just as she remembers it, sticky floor covered with cider, and shots, and beer residue, and low lighting throbbing with strobe vaguely in time with the thumping music, groups of girls in tight dresses and low cut tops dancing in circles, handbags in the middle, blokes watching in clusters, egging each other on to man up, give it a go, couples vaguely dancing with each other, no contact, and couples in the corner with no room for a piece of paper between them, vaguely, again in time with the music. It’s not what she’d prefer. There’s no space for thinking, for talking, it’s all about the physical, and evolutionary biology, or so she’s read, says that this is all about the display. Margaret hands her a shot, and she downs it, keen to stop analysing herself. She is, after all, a human animal and subject to the same evolutionary biology and should just get on with it, if she doesn’t want to end up a lonely middle aged lady, living on her own. She should stop thinking about what he said.  
One round of shots later, Wessex Tonight ladies have formed the circle, and Margaret is shimming at a man in the corner, and Ursula is bopping her head to the beat and trying to perform a robot move that hasn’t been seen since Beatrice was in middle school, and Hero’s doing her look at me with the blonde hair swishing move, and Beatrice is wishing she was elsewhere, when the Wessex Tonight boys walk in. He's wearing a black collared shirt, and black pants, and for a moment he's the pirate he's pretending to be, and she's not pretending that she doesn't like it.  
Craig, the young security guard is wearing a truly awful fluoro shirt and it takes Benedick some seconds to focus in the dark, and point Claude in the right direction, watch him zero in on his target, and shoulder check some unsuspecting random out of the way to innocently greet Hero with “I didn’t know you’d be here,” like he didn’t, and perhaps there’s hope for him yet. Scanning the room, Benedick acknowledges Margaret, slinky in black Margaret, draping herself around a bloke with a shaved head and a sleeve of tatts, and notes, and tries not to note Beatrice all legs, and no bra, and hips and movement, dancing mostly on her own and only vaguely with a bearded guy in a bad suit, and Benedick shoulders up against Don, who is watching it all unfold with a sour face. Ursula, shouldering everyone else’s bags shuffles up on the other side. Peter’s got a round in, and hands them out silently. Ursula sipping her shandy through a straw.  
“Look at them all, just like a pack of dogs, humping up against each other,” mutters Don, and Benedick removes his shoulder.  
“You’re just new to the scene, right?” says Ben. “Divorced or something, yeah?”  
“Or something,” says Don. “Look at her go, though. I mean, that’s a little rich, right?”  
Benedick looks where Don’s pointing. There’s a blonde girl dancing, short skirts, tight top, like every other female in the club. She seems to be having a good time with the bloke she’s dancing with, true, but no more than any other female in the club. He comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t know Don very well, and probably doesn’t care to.  
“Look,” and he points in the other direction, where there’s a cluster of twenty somethings dancing around a pile of handbags, like a ritual sacrifice. “Try your luck over there. That could be you.”  
“Fat chance,” Don mutters into his glass.  
Benedick shrugs. If Don won’t, he will.  
The music’s loud, and the girls are willing, and he has a good time with hands mostly in the right places, dancing to surely the same music he was dancing to three years ago, Wessex knowing what it likes and sticking to it. Has a good time until Claude bounces into him.  
“I need a hand,” Claude says. Benedick shrugs, but the girl lets go, and dances in the direction of her friends, shaking her assets to remind him what he’s missing.  
“I need a drink,” says Benedick, and steers him in the direction of the bar.  
Pints in, they edge their way back to the periphery of the dance floor, now solidly packed with all humanity’s leftovers.  
“Spill,” says Ben.  
“I don’t know what to do. Ben, I don’t. I’ve never felt like this before. She’s an absolute angel.”  
Benedick looks, and can’t see her anywhere. Can’t see any of them, bar Ursula, waiting patiently at a table with everyone’s belongings. Don and Pete are long gone.  
“She’s in the loo. All of them are. I don’t understand that.”  
Benedick shrugs. “There’s nothing you need me to tell you here. If you’re in, you’re in. Take her back to yours, and for heaven’s sake, wear a condom. Don’t knock up the weather girl. I mean, the daughter of the boss. Not a good look.”  
Claude takes a full step back. “I’m not going to sleep with her. I mean, that’s not on. We haven’t been out on a date yet. That’s just not right.”  
Benedick lets his eyes roll. “I can tell you, a girl like that, dancing with you like that, she’s not waiting for you to ask for your hand in marriage. Hero bloody wants you to shag her. Shag her. It’s pretty much that simple.”  
Claude puts his hand on Ben’s arm. “You just don’t understand. It’s different with me and Hero. It’s special. I can feel it. She deserves more than that.”  
“…Deserves more than what?” Hero demands, appearing at Claude’s side, looking at Ben expectantly, like a puppy waiting for a treat. Beatrice behind her, like an ever supportive winggirl should be, and Margaret nowhere to be seen. Benedick tries not to meet her eyes, and fails. They’re smudged black with mascara, and the look she’s giving him is decidedly untrusting. He gives that up as a bad job, and looks back at Hero, waiting patiently, with a smile.  
“This drink,” says Ben, holding out the glass of bubbly Claude had required he buy, and Hero takes it joyfully, looking up at Claude with appreciation.  
Beatrice looks at him. “There’s not one for me, is there.” It’s not really a question.  
Benedick holds out his half drunk pint. “In a war zone like this, can you really afford to be fussy?”  
Beatrice eyes it off. “That’s bound to be full of your spit. Who knows where your mouth’s been tonight?”  
Benedick wipes at his face, and damn it, she’s got him again. He hadn’t even kissed anyone, there’s no chance any lipstick’s made its way to his cheek. “Fine. I’ll drink it.” And he does, watching her throughout. “There. I’m sure, if you’re good, someone else will buy you a drink. Unless you’re up for a bit of the old cardiovascular, I’m off for the night.”  
She looks at him, carefully, head to toe, he can feel each excruciating inch, and he doesn’t like it all. She turns the same gaze on the dance floor, and he can feel her assessing the bubble of personal space she’d be allotted and finding it wanting, he knows she’s going to say no. He’s not even sure why he asked.  
“I thank you, but no. That’s more vertical shagging at this point, and I’m not sure you’re that far in my good books, if at all.” She’s icy. She’s a downright frigid bitch, and he’s not sure why he cares.  
He sets the pint glass down carefully.  
“Claude, Hero, a pleasure. Beatrice. I’d say it was a pleasure, but it wasn’t.” Takes his jacket from the patient Ursula and tries to smile but fails.  
It would have been poetic if the crowd had parted before him to let him leave with a flourish, but he’s forced to wedge his way between punters and lasses in short skirts, and apologise for treading on toes, and when he looks back, he can see Beatrice’s mocking face.


	2. In which Ben has good intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No eavesdropper ever hears well of themselves, and Ben's no exception

He has a routine now. Tuesdays and Thursdays, he ducks out after the run down meeting, to the inevitable chime of Beatrice twitting him about becoming one with the elderpeople, to shoot the Antiques show slots, the meet and greets with the hopefuls with the junk from the attic that bookend the more serious appraisals that the good folk from Sothebys conduct. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and occasional Saturdays, he shoots his in depth slots for Wessex Tonight. This makes Beatrice happy because she has two fifths more indepths than he does. In theory. In practice, Beatrice is not happy because she is giving up slots to Benedick, is how she’s explained it. In Benedick’s mind, and as he’s explained it to her, every Tuesday and Thursday as he ducks out, she’s a shrew who couldn’t be happy if someone paid her to be. He had had good intentions about taking the high road and not the low, try to condescend only a little bit to Beatrice about the London gig. He’d tried to focus on the fact that money can be exchanged for goods and services, and to stay in the money deriving job, the audience did like to see their co-anchors get on, and the audience did indeed seem to love Bea. He’s trying.  
Occasionally, he returns to find his office locked. She hasn’t done the let’s glue in the lock trick yet, but it can only be a matter of time. He carries an industrial strength solvent in his briefcase just in case. In some newsrooms, that would be odd. He doesn’t think about it any more.  
Occasionally, he buys her coffee. But sugared. He knows she detests it. It’s the joy of seeing her confused by an apparently kind act, and take the first sip and swallow, and her face wrinkle, and her eyes lock on his, with the death glare of a thousand suns. It’s the very little things. He has also appropriated her favourite stapler. There have been a number of diatribes unleashed about the pettiness of people who take other people’s things without returning them, but she hasn’t found it yet. Sidebar: it’s at the back of her closet. Under her spare pair of pantihose.  
Tuesday and Thursday night he also takes Claude to the pub. It’s the kind, no, the sensible thing to do. After all, Claude is out with Hero Friday and Saturday and hasn’t shagged her yet, and the amount of nervous tension that fills the newsroom is unbearable as a result. Every night, there’s a necessity to stand with Claude, and listen to him go on about how beautiful Hero is, how kind, how funny, and watch the girls get ready.  
Beatrice has this little ritual, he’s noticed. He hasn’t figured out how to mess with it yet, and he’s not sure if he should. When she sits down, after she’s straightened herself out, her hair, her jacket, her skirt or pants or whatever, she puts her hands in her lap together, like she’s a schoolgirl waiting for assembly, and closes her eyes. It’s not for long, and it’s not every night, only when she has time. It’s sweet.  
Also in the plus column: they’ve been able to improv together when things haven’t gone to plan. The first time it happened, when Don didn’t flick the switch to roll the pre-recorded story, she’d launched into patter about the story they’d discussed and rejected that morning, a ten second snapshot of very local local news about a bookshop in Bath closing that had been open for two hundred years, which he’d capped with a recommendation that should you be in the area, you should not only stop in and say good bye and fare you well, but also try the teacakes from the neighbouring shop, not neglecting to admire the original features on the walls, indicating ovens from the sixteen hundreds. She’d looked surprised, and dare he say it, impressed. He had had a minor in arts, as well as communication, and she’d known it well back in the intern days. Perhaps she’d thought he’d blagged his way through that too.  
The second time, Don having slipped up on the roll final credits, he asked her what she was doing on the weekend, and she, this time looking unsurprised, listed off a number of possibilities, amongst them a trip to Bath to try the teacakes. He’d probably looked surprised. Hadn’t thought quite quick enough before the credits rolled to disguise it. She’d left too soon after to tease her about it either.  
The third time, the time before it all went a bit wrong, Pete had asked them to fill, calm voice in the earphones, and it wasn’t clear what’d gone wrong, only two stories in, and the story just gone having been about the economy, he ventures to comment on the ale having gone up in his local, and she suggests that the increase is due not to the economy, but due to having him drunk too much of it, but there’s a twinkle in her eye, and for a moment, not longer, but he would have sworn it was there, a smile just for him.  
That afternoon, they demolish each other on the beach, and there’s the massive weight in the down column, she’s simply better at destroying him than he is her. Everything she says, from the beard, the pirate, the antiquing being a second choice, the lack of speed, lack of wit, it’s all true, and it’s galling. To be fair, he should have known better than to rise to her comment that he should tell his friend Claude to either get on with wooing Hero or to leave her be, and he certainly shouldn’t, had he any sense, told her that he would never interfere in someone else’s lovelife, but perhaps she likes managing other people’s affairs more than entering into one, and honestly, he didn’t mean to call her a frigid bitch, not out loud, and certainly not while she was looking at him like the aforesaid teacake to be eaten, and it’s all gone to hell. He can’t work with her. Not like this. He’s going to have to quit. And then there’s the point about money being necessary to exchange for goods and services, and not having a wealthy family, or indeed any family, to fall back on, he can’t. He’s tied to the goodwill of Pete, and Leo, and he needs to stick to those good intentions.  
The next day’s a Thursday. He needs to leave directly after the rundown, she knows that, and she drags it on, and on, and interminably on, arguing about whether time should be given to her story about field clearing and diversity in the hedgerows, or his about historic site preservation. Both are a bit worthy, not really audience pleasers, and both know it. On a normal day, he’d let it go. This isn’t a normal day, and the more that she brings out arguments about climate change, and bees, and local crops, the less he cares, and she ends up shouting at him, and Hero cries. That night, Claude cancels on him. He drinks alone, and sits in his boring sterile serviced apartment, and thinks about quitting.  
That Friday is Leo’s fancy dress party, ostensibly to welcome him and Pete back to Wessex Tonight, but really, as is incredibly apparent from Hero’s enthusiasm, to give Hero an opportunity to dress up as Marilyn Munroe. He’s not complaining about that: Hero is a very pretty girl indeed. He is complaining about Claude’s requirement that as his wingman, he wear armour, full armour, chafing and rubbing and metal substitute armour. He can’t sit down, can’t properly stand up, and the helmet visor continually runs the risk of snapping off the end of his nose. It’s not a good thing. He also doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t want to go. She’ll be there, and he’ll have to stick to the good intentions, or face the prospect of pre-emptively quitting or being sacked, and he’s tired, oh so tired, of not being able to do anything about it.  
Everyone’s odd, that night. With his visor down, he says some pretty stupid things. He tells Ursula that she should try internet dating, and stop dressing like nursery rhyme characters, and she looks confused, and then angry. He tells Hero that she’s wasted as a weather girl and that she should move stations to one where her dad isn’t a manager, if she’s serious. Or try acting. She pouts, and it’s less appealing than he remembers. He tells Leo that he needs some fresh blood and a new VX man, and Leo tells him, as Claude, to leave it to his elders, and laughs. He tells Beatrice, as Claude, that Benedick’s feeling a little slighted by her, and perhaps she should cool it with the comments, and he’s not sure entirely what he was expecting, but it wasn’t to hear that he’s pudgy, and his jokes derivative, and that his beard stupid, and that she wishes he’d never come back. The worst thing is that he can’t be sure whether she knows it’s him, and she’s doing it to drive him crazy, or if she doesn’t, and this is genuinely what she thinks. He keeps his visor up until he’s outside, and he can let out the exasperated sigh, if not the stream of unprintable expletives that he wants to let fly. She’s going down. Somehow, someway, she’s going down. In the meantime, he’s keeping his distance.  
That was his plan. It was a good plan, and might even have worked. Were it not for the fact that Beatrice saw him leave, and can’t leave well enough alone. Wants to dance. For the sake of the show, and the cardiovascular. If he hadn’t heard what he’d heard minutes before, he wouldn’t have held her at quite such a distance. Like a ticking time bomb, aimed only at him.  
Her hand is small, and warm, and hardly any weight on his shoulder. He couldn’t tell you about her waist, corseted and whaleboned, and he’s not thinking about that. Or the other time in the club, without the corset.  
The icing on the cake of the disaster of the night is Claude. Perhaps if he hadn’t made, even if only indirectly, Hero cry, Claude would have confided his plans and Benedick could have talked him out of it. On the upside, at least now presumably Claude’ll be getting his end away and thus a bit less bearable, a little less goddess-worshipping, and approaching normal. Whatever that is for Claude. The newsroom’s going to be unbearable now, all wedding talk, and Claude rabbiting on about the church, and her dress, and which suit he should wear. Perhaps he should quit now.

If she closes her eyes, she can see Hero still, by the side of the pool, hands clasped in front of her mouth, Claude at her feet. And hear Benedick, aping them, whispering in her ear, holding her hand. It’s like a little bubble that won’t go away, and she’d quite like it to. It’s troubling, on the one part, that the man she absolutely hates shares exactly the same sentiment about the two young fools, and on the second part, that there’s absolutely nothing she can do about it.  
It’ll be a choice of chicken or salmon, and is this the right shade of make up, and can you see about the flowers, and then Hero, bright bubbly silly Hero who she really does adore, will be married to someone who has less common sense than a chicken. She can still remember the time he was sent to film the falconry, and he instead went to interview a second league soccer player by the name of Faulconbridge. They’d had to let all the other stories run long, and Pete’s predecessor was thoroughly unimpressed. They should have known back then, and then she’d be spared all this. She can’t see it ending well.  
The corset left marks, as did the ruff. She bets Margaret had no marks, from the catsuit at any rate, but she’s long since left, hit up the clubs, nightowl that she is and none of Beatrice’s concern. Her costume stands by itself, rigid and upright. Reproaching.  
There’s a rerun of the antiques show. He looks so innocent, so engaging, and not the kind of person who’d call one a joyless frigid bitch. A boring middle aged woman, living alone. And it probably hurts the most because it’s true, and it’s not fair that he’s so much better at hurting her than she him. She needs to stop thinking about him. Take up a hobby. Like knitting. Or cats. Or falconry. Or perhaps she should leave.


	3. in which Benedick falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's meddling

He’s started running in the morning, along the boardwalk and there’s a rhythm to it, as the sun comes up and it’s like he’s stomping out her name, with every beat. Bea-trice, Bea-trice, down the street, like every time he does he’s eliminating her from his world, squashing a little mini-Bea. She’s inescapable now, either on the job, or in conversation with Claude, the planning, the fittings, the tastings, the invitations, every night there’s some reason why he hears her name, or worse yet, has to call her, co-ordinate all the details that Claude doesn’t care about but Hero does. Worst still are the nights where he sees her, just the four of them, Claude and Hero making lovesick murmurs at one end of the booth and at the other, Beatrice and he with the diaries and the phones and the lists. She’s unfailing kind to Hero and Claude, beyond patient with the dithering between swatches of satin that appear identical but apparently aren’t and with Claude’s ability to add two and two and make three. There’s a warmth in her eyes when she looks at them both, and he doubts very much that she was sincere in her protests that she’d hate to have someone say he loves her. Can’t imagine it happening, but if it did, it’d be pretty special. The way in which Claude’s looking at Hero wouldn’t compare.   
Then, of course, she looks at him, and it’s like someone’s asked her to suck a lemon. The air of annoyed disappointment that she’s having to acknowledge his existence.  
There’s no reason, of course, why he should care. He doesn’t.   
Then there are the dreams.   
The days are ticking off and his contract with the Antiques lapses, which is just as well. Between Wessex Tonight and the Claude / Hero wedding, he’s a bit pressed. There’s four months left of his commitment to Wessex Tonight, and it feels like it’s never going to end. He’s started with a calendar and the crossing, so that he feels like he’s getting somewhere.   
He has to buy new pants, and new sneakers, and running socks, and he’s on a train to somewhere and he doesn’t know the destination, but he’s moving. She can’t swipe at him about his weight anymore, and she’s not.   
She’s not talking to him other than when she needs to, and it feels odd. It should feel better than it does.  
He’s in his office, checking events for the next day before he has to hit the pub with Claude who is having an existential crisis about which tie to wear, when he can hear voices in the studio. He’d go down and switch it off, it’s probably the cleaners, but he hears his name, and he hears hers and he knows, god he knows, that eavesdroppers never hear anything good of themselves, but he needs to know, because if it’s not working out and he needs to find a new job, he needs to start looking.  
“…are you sure she’s in love with him?”   
He falls off his chair.   
Crawls on the carpet and fiddles fruitlessly with the volume control, before dismissing it as a bad job, and scuttling down the corridor in a crab like fashion, back to the wall to minimise the chances of getting caught. In theory. He crouches behind camera 2, unsure where the voices are coming from, but they’re continuing and he doesn’t want to miss it. Wipes his suddenly sweaty hands on his pants, and hopes that wherever they are, they can’t see him, and that Beatrice isn’t listening. Is she listening?  
“Oh yes. I’m sure. You should hear her after the pub. She says she doesn’t know what she’s going to do.” That’s Hero. “I said she should just kiss him.” Ben flashes a swift mental picture, and it’s sufficiently distracting that he misses the next thing she says, lost to the ether.  
“I’ve told her it’s no good. Ben’s not the type who could be serious about anyone.” Cheers, Claude, thanks very much, thinks Ben, and see whether I help you with your damn ties any more.  
“I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit. He’s grown since he went to London. I’m sure if he knew, he’d be at least decent to her. I’m more worried about Beatrice. She’s said,” and here Pete pauses dramatically, “that she might have to do something drastic.”   
“She can’t leave,” Leo says,” I mean, I love Ben, but the show’s the two of them. Together they work. I just wish they’d see that.”  
Ben’s grip on the camera loosens, and it starts a slow wander across the floor, leaving him stranded and alone.  
“I think we just hope it dies out. And that he never finds out. I don’t share your optimism, I think he’d just mock her to bits. You don’t know how hurt she was when he left. He told her by text, you know. Left her sitting in a restaurant. That’s got to sting.” Leo is solemn, pronouncing doom on their relationship before it even begins. “Hero, come and give your old father the run down. Four weeks to go?”  
“Come and listen to my playlist,” she says, “I’ve put some Tom Jones in it for you!” and they all wander out.   
Benedick rolls over and looks at the ceiling, and the ceiling tiles have nothing to tell him. Scutters back to his room, and shuts the door behind him. The walls close in. He can’t think.  
Pounding the pavement, new sneakers, should bring relief, and all it brings is her name. bea-trice, bea-trice, bea-trice, over and over, faster and faster, until he bends double, seeing spots, breathing hard, staring at his feet. She’s inescapable.


	4. in which Beatrice is not in love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a reason why girls travel in packs

She needs to tell Ben. It’s not fair to do to him what he did to her. Never mind that he did it to her first. Friends don’t just leave each other in the lurch like that. If they are friends. Sometimes she thinks they might be.  
Of course, until she actually leaves, there’s nothing to tell. She has no job offer, no next step, just a plan to take it. This business with Hero, and Claude, and the way in which her stories have shifted, in conjunction with the wedding plans, to stories on belly dancing, and flower arranging, and dressmaking, and while it’s in part due to the wedding fever that’s taken the station over, it’s a trend that had in truth started before Ben landed. She loves Hero, wants her to be happy, whether she’s married to Claude or not, but Beatrice wants to be gone.  
The problem is that Ben’s being nice. Ben’s being excessively nice, like he has something to prove by it. He’s bringing her coffee, the way she likes it. Laughing at her jokes, instead of trying to one up them. Even when they’re about him. She can’t place the look in his eyes, either. It’s a little too unprotected. Not the way their interactions usually go. She’s not entirely clear why this is happening, but not willing to spend any time thinking about it.  
But she does need to tell him. The difficulty lies in that although they spend plenty of time together, more now that he’s not shooting the Antiques show, and that they are both continually on call for the perpetually disorganised Hero and Claude, this is not a conversation for witnesses, and there’s always plenty. The sensible, grown up, mature thing to do would be to ask him to the pub, or dinner, or even just for a walk, but none of those have gone well in the past. She needs to tell him, sure, but she doesn’t need to get hurt in the process.  
So she compromises, tells him that they need to talk, at a time when she can’t, duties of the matron of honour on the wild Hero hen’s night. That way she can say that she tried, when she leaves, and he berates her for leaving him in the lurch. She ignores, mostly successfully, the way in which he’s in only his undershirt, and pants. Mostly. Red chest hair bears thinking about. Except when it’s on him.  
Hero’s hen’s night. She remembers Hero when she was underage and sneaking into clubs, sipping alcopops. To be honest, not a lot seems to have changed, except that there is a veil clipped rakishly to her head. The wings they’re all wearing were all the rage five years ago too, and she wants to tell Hero that she looks like Tinkerbell, and she’d make a killing in London, if she ever wanted to go on the panto stage instead of settling down with Claude. But this is Hero’s big night, preparatory to the big day, so she bites her tongue and passes out the novelty condoms and penis shaped lollypops, and party favour vibes, and takes Ursula for a sedate dance so that Hero and Margaret can get one up on the shots, all with a careful eye on how many exactly she’s had. It wouldn’t do to be unable to make sure that Hero’s actually made it home.  
Ursula pleads off at the end of the song, and Hero looks suitably grateful when Beatrice delivers her back to the table. Looks, actually, like she needs distraction, like she’s unsettled, and Beatrice has prepared for this eventuality.  
“Drinking games!”  
Margaret hoots. “You’ll have to actually drink, Beatrice, if you want us to.”  
“Fine.” She sips her bubbly. It’s too sweet. “I’ve a list of things about Claude that you have to tell us are true or false. Ready Hero?”  
Margaret shakes her head. “Tame, Bea. She’s got years of Claude yet. Let’s talk about something more interesting. How about never have I ever? Or shoot, marry or shag?”  
“Yes,” crows Hero. “I want to hear everyone’s dirty little secrets. There’s the shots, take one and I want to hear everyone’s pick in the station. I’m the bride, and you’ve all got to do it or take a penalty. C’mon Bea, take a shot?”  
Hero’s big eyes cannot be denied. The shots look like a questionable mix of drano and lighter fluid, and smell sickly sweet.  
“Me first,” says Margaret. “I’d shoot that Don, slimy git that he is,” and Beatrice sees Hero shiver, “and marry probably Pete, because he seems nice and sensible, bring home the bacon,” and the table nods, “and then…I’d shag Benedick.”  
Beatrice has never liked Margaret. Meg. Margie. She puts the shot down, but there’s a circle left under it.  
“Yes,” agrees Hero, “definitely Benedick, I mean, it’s in the name, isn’t it?”  
Beatrice wonders if it’s time to move them on to another game. Or another club. Or to take a sanity break in the loo.  
“Oh yes. It’s all in how he looks at your tits when he’s talking to you. No, I don’t mind that. I don’t! You just know he’d be good. A bit dirty, a bit of a laugh. Don’t you think? Beatrice, I’ve got to know. Did you and he ever…”  
“I’m going to the loo.” Beatrice says, as calmly as she can manage.  
“Answer the question, Bea,” says Hero, “or pay the forfeit.”  
The shot’s as vile as it looks, and she tries to hold it in her mouth so she can spit it out, but it burns, and she swallows, and she wants the night to be over. Wants it all to be over.  
The bathroom is lurid colours, black and white and pink all over, but the music’s muffled. She shouldn’t open the packet that crinkles at the bottom of her bag and promises a moment of calm. She really shouldn’t.  
It’s a good moment of calm, although her head’s spinning, and the room appears to be pulsing in time with the music. She needs to think a way out of this. She needs not to think about his shoulders in that singlet. She fumbles under the packet, managing not to burn herself, and finds the John Donne, batter my heart, and takes another drag. It’s not calming. It’s not, and there’s noise, and it’s Margaret, calling her name like a puppy dog and she ducks into the toilet, dropping the cig in the loo. Stands on the seat like a truant kid. She’s had enough. She’s had more than enough.  
“Must be outside then,” says Margaret. “Stupid old trout. She didn’t need to take off in quite such a snit. It was a simple question.”  
“Oh, not if you know the full story,” says Hero, and Beatrice can hear the smile in her voice through the cubicle door. “They were going to go out, they were, Dad says. And then he skipped town and broke her heart. Now, he’s in love with her, and she won’t have him.”  
Beatrice steps into the toilet bowl, and places her hand firmly on her mouth. She can’t be that drunk that she’s hallucinating. Hero actually believes this. Like they’re star crossed lovers. Like Benedick cares. About her. She can’t get beyond that bit.  
Ursula takes up the story, “And you should see the way he looks at her when they’re on camera, it’s with such adoration. Such devotion. It’s heartbreaking.”  
Margaret appears, through the cubicle doors, to be retching. “I’m sorry, Ursula, but that’s just not right. Benedick can’t be in love with such a sour, kill-joy of a woman. I mean, she’d bite his head off if he put one toe out of line. Real black widow of a bitch.”  
There’s a pause, in which Beatrice contemplates emerging to take Margaret down, but it’s broken by Margaret again, “Having said that, I really do quite admire her. It must be tough, working with someone you used to fancy who dumped you, and keeping your front up all the time. The sad thing is, sad thing is, right, if she got the stick out of her ass, gave him half a chance, I think they’d be really good together. Certainly give the rest of us a break from their fights, right?”  
There’s general noises of consensus, and noisy silence as they jostle to adjust make up, wonderbras, tiny bridal veil (in the case of Hero), and a final joyous shout by Hero that “I’m getting married,” and by everyone else, “woooh!” and the door shuts behind them.  
This would be the point at which Beatrice would normally think of putting Hero in a taxi. But it’s her hens’ night, and Beatrice is currently ensconced in a toilet, with a wet foot. She waits until she’s sure they’ve left and finds the paper towels, trying not to sit on anything too sticky, while she dries.  
She can’t stop thinking about it. Benedick, in love with her. Benedick, looking at her out in the open for anyone to see, with an air of devotion. Like he belongs to her. She feels oddly protective. Which is ridiculous, he’s a grown man, and he has his own many layers of armour, and doesn’t need her. Except that he does. She’s needed.  
It’s a nice story.  
There’s no proof, though, is the thing. Is the actual thing. If she’s caught feelings, which she’s not admitting to herself at this point, towelling off her foot on a manky nightclub toilet floor, but if she has, she’s going to be pretty damn sure that he’s caught them too, before she says anything. Does anything.  
His face, though. His stupid, adorable, bearded face with those eyebrows, those eyes.  
He has been staring, she’s noticed that. And there’s the coffee.  
She’s dry. She’s warm, all over, despite the skimpy dress, and the stupid green bridesmaid wings. She’ll go back out there, and shepherd Hero around one last time before she becomes Claude’s problem, and she won’t blush if his name’s mentioned, or say that she wants to rip his singlet off and roll around on white sheets with him, and she certainly won’t be telling them that she’s in love. Because she’s not. Probably.


	5. In which it's a strange new world, with such people in it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benedick isn't entirely sure what's expected of him any more.

He feels odd walking through the front door, like he’s doing it for the first time, all over again. It’s not quite as shiny and new and impressive as it was that real first time five years ago, but he feels just as nervous pushing the door open as he did then, except now it’s the giant poster of the woman he loves that’s causing it. In it, she’s standing, arms folded, power suit wearing, and that smile of hers that the audience falls for every time. How has he not noticed the brilliance of this poster before? Attractive doesn’t begin to cover it.  
The security bozo, Dumbleberry, or Bumperstilkskin, whatever the fool’s name is, coughs, and calls for ‘Identification, please’, and Pete taps him on the shoulder as he walks through after him, and the spell’s broken, at least until he meets her in the corridor on the way to the Monday run down.  
He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to say. Is he meant at this point to act the textbook Romeo, worshipping his lady hand and foot, or start reciting Hallmark cards, or worse yet, top forties hits about how he’s hers, body and soul, and all the rest of it? He had a shower after his morning run, and yet he’s as sweaty again now as if he’d skipped it. Best to attempt to play it cool. Just very calm, very natural. And if that doesn’t work, the Hallmark thing can be plan B. Except, while he’s had limited success with cheesy one liners, clubs, bars, that kind of thing, for the physical, he’s not so sure it’s going to work here. With another woman, maybe. With Beatrice, it’s probably going to get him killed.  
And he’s staring again. The heart palpitation thing turns out to be real, not just a thing that someone made up for a song. She appears to have asked him a question.  
“That’s absolutely fascinating, Beatrice,” he assays. “I totally agree with what you just said. We should definitely do that.”  
She rolls her eyes at him. “I asked you about your weekend. The buck’s party?”  
He’s glad that the beard covers most of the blush.  
“Claude enjoyed it all, except for the stripper. That is, the entirety of the bit that made it a buck’s night, and not just a bunch of blokes coming together to drink beer. Claude likes beer. Claude doesn’t like, apparently, any one else’s naked pink bits but Hero’s.”  
And now he’s awoken the velociraptor.  
“You, in this day and age, hired a stripper for your friend’s birthday party? I should have known. How typically male. How perfectly ridiculous.” And there’s the folded arms from the poster, but without the smile, or the twinkle in the eye.  
“The stripper was a surprise present from Don. I, I’d like you to know, was solely responsible for the beer. You don’t, presumably, object to a groom being shouted more than a sensible amount of alcohol to celebrate the impending doom about to befall him?”  
She’s mollified, momentarily. “That Don. There’s something about him I’ve never liked. Something wrong there. A shiftiness in the face, something sneaky. And there, of course, he is. Speak later, yes?”  
He’s tongue tied again. “Yes, definitely, look forward to it, of course.”  
She looks at him strangely, and takes her seat in the pen.  
Five days to go, and Hero’s more twitchy than a rabbit on an ant’s nest, eager, Ben expects, for the week to be over, and all the planning, the wedding dress, the flowers, the bridesmaids, the church, the chicken or salmon to be done. It’s been the education he’d never wanted into the wedding industry, and perhaps there’s a story there, but not for this week of keeping the bride happy, when the wedding vendors are still to deliver, and could, heaven forfend, spit in the soup, deliver the wrong shade of roses, run out of champagne at the critical moment, ruin Hero’s big day. Can’t be doing with that. Hero’s a sweet little chickadee, and deserves to have her dreams come true, that is, to the extent marrying Claude fulfils them. Perhaps after.  
Not so twitchy is Claude, who’s still sitting as bushy tailed as ever on the front of his seat, waiting to be told what to do. The buck’s party had been, if Ben thinks about it properly, which he can do now the hangover black cloud has lifted, more than a little odd. He’d done the right thing, and hired out their local, the back room for the night, and the back room hadn’t been quite big enough, Claude’s rugby friends had filled half the pub, and brought a satisfactory air of jollity, and Claude had been happy enough drinking with them, as predicted by Hero, and the pool tables had been full, and no one had injured themselves with the darts, or been thrown out for excessive stupidity. The troubles, such as they’d been, had started when the Essex Tonight crew had arrived, Leo bearing Pete under his arm, Tweedledee and Tweedledumber the security team following like faithful hound dogs, the edit suite fellows, sound and lighting and finally, and he hadn’t recalled specifically inviting him, Don.  
Don had, from nowhere Ben was aware of, produced an inflatable sex doll, and a set of stick on condoms, and the rugby crew had thought that stick the franger on the sex toy was hugely amusing. Claude hadn’t been quite so sure. “Hero wouldn’t approve,” he’d said, and they’d called him henpecked, and Don had told him that she certainly knew her way around a condom, or what was he expecting, a blushing virgin bride in Wessex?  
Ben would have intervened, but that was the point at which the stripper had turned up, a blonde, or at least a lass in a blonde wig, dressed in Hero’s trade mark short skirts and buttoned jackets, and made up to look like her, and Claude had, once he’d realised what was going on, not been happy. Very extremely unhappy. Shouting at Benedick unhappy, and spilling his beer on Benedick’s shoes unhappy, and taking off Benedick’s jacket and giving it to the stripper unhappy.  
The stripper had been very kind, gave it back in exchange for the Hero-esque outfit, and Ben’d mostly kept his eyes up. She’d said that the gentleman who’d hired her had asked for her to look like a weathergirl, and she’d always liked that blonde one on Wessex Tonight. On further pressing, she’d said it was Don. On further further examination, she’d also volunteered that he’d asked her if she did anything else for money, and if she did, would she do it in the outfit, and she’d told him she wasn’t that kind of girl. Benedick’d paid her another hundred quid for the inconvenience, and hoped it’d be enough to stop her from going to the tabloids. After that point, he’d kept an eye on Don, and tried to keep him away from Claude. It hadn’t mattered in the end, Claude’d preserved his own honour because Claude’d been sufficiently far enough gone that he’d needed to be put in a cab and escorted home, tucked up in bed with a bucket placed thoughtfully nearby to preserve the surprisingly tasteful one bedder, and that, plus a shot or two at home to take the taste out of his mouth, had been the end of that.  
He wondered, while the normal daily wrangle over headlines and stories played out, what the ladies had got up to. Whether they’d had a stripper, whether anyone’d made a sufficient fool of themselves to make a point of in the speech, because otherwise it’d be a bit unbalanced. He’d have to ask.  
She was looking at him again, without the crossed arms, and with, if not a smile, at least not a grimace. Maybe it was true. Maybe she had warmed to him. The famous Benedick charm.  
Pete cleared his throat, and looking round, Ben found himself the centre of not just Beatrice’s gaze, but everyone’s. Another missed cue, and the songs didn’t have to be quite this true.  
“I totally agree with what Beatrice just said. It was a top notch idea. We should definitely do that.” Hopefully, at least brownie points. He wasn’t sure. With any other girl, it’d be the right thing to do.  
“So, after opposing my story on the shutting of nursing homes for the last five weeks, you’ve now decided it’s a ‘top notch’ idea, have you? Spiffing, old chap, what ho, and carry on. I don’t care what’s changed your mind, but if Ben’s ticked it, Leo, surely you’re going to have to agree?” Beatrice is looking unaccountably pleased, and Benedick is overly surprised, once again, when he has goosebumps. He tells his body that it’s not strictly speaking necessary, and his body tells him it knows what it’s doing, thank you very much, and to butt out.  
Leo shakes his head, “Ratings, Bea. If there was some good angle, I’d try it, but there’s not. It’s worthy, absolutely, but they’ll switch off.”  
He wants the smile again, and his body gains control of his mouth, but sadly not his higher thinking facilities. “Leo, I’m sure Beatrice can find an angle. She’s got nothing but good angles, look at her. I mean, look. Surely there’s got to be a photogenic octogenarian we can whip up, a minor celebrity from way back when?”  
‘Good angles?’ Claude mouths to Hero, who giggles behind her hand.  
“Hell must have frozen over. It’s still a no, Beatrice. Provisional maybe if you can deliver me an affected celebrity. I’ll settle for c-list, but I don’t think you’re going to find one. They’re nursing homes, for crying out loud, not homes of the rich and famous. All right, that’s the show, get going everyone.” Leo pushes his chair back, and they’re all dismissed.  
Beatrice storms off. Hero stops Benedick, with a hand on his arm, French manicures all ready for Saturday, and big Bambi eyes looking up at him. “Let her settle. You know how she is.”  
Actually, he doesn’t. Not really. Not like he’d like to. It’s unsettling how much he wants to know.


	6. In which Beatrice feels too much and slightly ridiculous all at once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps she's coming down with a cold. Or perhaps she needs not to be part of the wedding jitters

She messages him a thank you. He replies with a smiley face.  
Follows that with a request that she confirm if she had hired a stripper for Hero.  
She hesitates before responding.   
‘If I tell you,’ she types, ‘you can’t tell Claude’.   
‘Deal’, he responds with a winky emoji. ‘But you have to tell me something else for free. Nothing for nothing, Beatrice.’  
‘No hiring as such. However, Hero was very appreciative of some fairly scantily clad lads on a podium at one point in the evening.’  
She can practically hear the hooting through the IM.   
‘Slight dash of hypocrisy? Is that how we roll?’  
‘Margaret’s idea. It was late. I was tired.’  
‘You are forgiven. And I won’t tell. Answer me this, though, what were you drinking, when you still had a choice?’  
‘Nothing about that night was really my choice. If I’d had a choice, it would have been a quiet gin and tonic and a book. Not quite as much fun for Hero though.’  
‘Kindle or paper?’  
‘Both. So much more manageable on kindle for the massive Game of Throne meanders, and paper for those that I want to savour, not eat.’  
‘Quite. And are you one of those kinds of people who writes marginalia but would never turn down a page corner?’  
‘No. I am one of those kinds of people who shamefully dogears her favourite passages, but leaves no evidence to the outside world of why. If something’s mine, I’m not inclined as to explanations. Solitary pleasures and all that.’  
There’s a pause in the response, and she wonders if she’s offended him. Pulls up, half-heartedly, the script she’s meant to be working on for tonight. There’s nothing of interest in reporting on the latest ‘crime spree’ of graffiti, she’s seen some of the tunnels, and the colours at least brighten, rather than add to the grunge, not that she’s to say that, the chamber of commerce being what it is. Toeing the party line isn’t sufficient to hold her attention, and she keeps returning to the screen.  
Watching the blinking cursor.  
It strikes her that she’s been unnecessarily detailed in her responses. She’s given him an explanation, when she’s said she doesn’t, and he’s given her nothing. Is that too trusting?   
‘nothing for nothing, Benedick. London or Wessex? Are you going to pop back after Keith recovers and demands his post back?’  
There’s still silence, and she decides bugger it, and shuts the window.   
Finishes her story. Starts the next one, a bit of puff on whether children should be allowed to walk home alone from school, and if so, from when, and tries not hate write when she hits the opinions of the local Mayor, that all women who have children should be fully available to their children at all times, and essential for child development this, and underfunded schools that, and the rage consumes the disappointment and takes her through to lunchtime.   
Where she sees him, in the staff cafeteria. He’s with Claude, who appears to be having some sort of crisis, and Ben waves her over, as if she’s the cavalry and he’s the damsel in distress.   
She reassures Claude that of course there’s plenty of time between now and Saturday to write his speech, and it won’t really matter what he says anyway, but if it does, to ask Benedick, who is renowned for his way with words, and is bound to do it as his best man anyway. Claude is effusive in his praise for solving his problem, or at least as effusive as someone who can’t write a sports script without help can be, and that’s two speeches for Ben to write, and she should feel bad, but Ben’s looking at her like she’s made of Waterford crystal, too precious to touch, and she wants to tell him that crystal’s for using, that there’s no point in having feelings if you’re not going to act on them, and it’s all a bit much, and there’s Hero over there, toying with lettuce, and she has duties of her own. Turns her back, takes her tray and leaves.  
He hadn’t been ignoring her messages, he’d been busy and they’d never been delivered, the question waiting in the ether.  
There’s a quick reply after lunch.   
‘If it was my choice, I’d stay. It’s up to Leo whether he takes back the vodka hound, or looks at the ratings. Have you looked at the ratings? They are most definitely up. As high as the corn on the fourth of July, as the yanks would say. Let me buy you a g+t tonight and we can plan the end game.’  
She tries to leave at least a minute before responding, but she can’t.  
‘The ratings are up because there are two sentient people on the desk, but I’m not sure that’s what influences Leo’s decisions. If anyone’s for the chop, it’s me, and yes, we do need to talk about that, but no, not tonight, or any night this week, I have a nervous bride to keep on track...let’s try for after.’   
She signs out of the IM, quickly, to avoid temptation.  
That night, her duties involve assisting Margaret to style Hero’s hair in an endless variety of ways, all of which look perfectly fine to Beatrice, but each of which has merit or not to be discussed ad nauseum by Hero with Margaret, and not requiring much more than a yes, or a no, or an are you sure that you want that many hair pins? Claude’ll have to take it out or risk giving you acupuncture in the middle of the night.   
When she checks her phone, there are three messages from Benedick, who is seemingly being tortured by a blank piece of paper, and blaming her entirely. No ideas, he says, because all the things he can think of stealing from the wedding speech book he’d found in the station research stack require words that use more than four syllables and, as they both know, Claude doesn’t do well above three, and not above two if he’s had more than a couple, which he will have.   
Put down the book, she messages. Write down what you’d say, if you were to ever succumb to the m-word. Then triage anything too poly.   
There’s a hair emergency, and she has to put the phone down. Margaret then shoos her away, as she applies a straightener, and the phone’s blinking at her again.  
‘Tell me, what would you want to hear. That you wouldn’t want to hear a husband says he loves you, you’ve said. What would you, then?’  
Margaret asks her what’s wrong, and Hero looks at her in the mirror quizzically, half hair up, half hair down. Hair spray, Beatrice says, and Hero and Margaret look at each other knowingly, and Beatrice promises to herself that she won’t let them borrow her phone.  
“That’s something for private,” she thumbs out.   
“I’ll come over then.”  
“No, I mean, not for the speech. I’d want my husband to tell me that in private.”  
“And in public then?”  
She pauses, and Hero and Margaret are both looking at her in the mirror.  
“You’ve gone a bit flush, Bea. Have another glass of fizz. The bride’s the one who’s meant to be blushing, not you. Who are you texting with such vigour anyway?” Margaret asks, with significant looks at Hero.  
“I’m just feeling a bit feverish. All the late nights and bridal flurry. You carry on, I’m just going to,” and she gestures to Hero’s balcony.  
She takes the glass with her. Downs it in one reckless swing and starts typing before she can second guess herself.  
“I’d want him to say how excited he was to be doing this with me. What an adventure, the two of us, making a life together. I’d want him to say that he’d always trust me with his heart, because he’d know I was trusting him with mine, no matter how many times we butt each other with our heads. I’d leave it at that, because anything else is private for the two of us, solitary pleasures and all that. But that’s me, not Hero, and definitely not Claude. Enough to be going on with?”  
“God, yes.”   
The answer’s too quick, and she can feel him suddenly, on the other end of the texts, as nervous and excited as her. She wants, and she doesn’t want, him to be there, in person, so she can see his face. More.


	7. A weekend in the country, how delightful?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beatrice isn't quite ready. Neither is Ben.

Part 7: a weekend in the country, how delightful  
She doesn’t know what to wear, is the thing. Obviously, for the thing itself, there’s the pale peach dooverlackie that Hero has designed and the hair and face that Margaret’s assigned to go along with it, and that’s fine, it’s a done deal, it’s all for Hero, and it’s all good, it doesn’t really matter what she looks like for that, as long as it’s what Hero wants. It’s the rest of the weekend that poses the problem. None of her night clothes, for occasions, or formal dinners, will do. Certainly not the active wear that she slouches around the flat, pops out to buy the milk and so on in. She has no clothes that really say what she wants to say, which is probably because she’s never wanted to say this particular thing before. She’d ask someone, an Ursula, or an Hero or even a Margaret, but doing that would mean explanations, and she doesn’t want to give any.  
There’s one work top that almost does the transition, a slightly flirty ruffle here, a modest yet flattering neckline there, a soft reddish colour. It’s a top that has resulted in letters to the station from concerned old ladies, worried that she might catch cold. It’s a top that was retired out of the regular rotation sometime during the Keith era and which hasn’t resurfaced since then. It’s a top that says she’s feeling casual yet receptive to listening to anyone who happened to be madly in love with her kind of look and potentially, perhaps, reciprocating. At least that’s what she hopes it says. It’s a lot for one outfit to communicate.   
There’s no need for all the flap, she wants to tell herself. Perhaps there’s no feelings there to be had. It’s Benedick, after all. He was probably just flirting. Perhaps he wasn’t even flirting. Just all the proximity from the wedding, and the working, and the double teaming the two lovebirds, did what all the shared history couldn’t, and wore down the malice to a tolerable level, and she’s confused that with affection, easily done.   
She finds herself packing and unpacking, and packing again, the good underwear. If anything happens, after all, important to put one’s best bra forward. Not that she necessarily wants anything to happen. But if it did, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, at least according to her co-workers, and the situation would be resolved one way or another. She’d know, at least, what his curls feel like in her hands. That stupid mouth of his on hers.   
She packs the clothes firmly down, and zips the bag tight. Ridiculous.  
Claude is driving him nuts, Benedick is aware.   
When he’s in the same room, he wants reassurance, the pat on the shoulder, the countdown to d-day, d-hour, d-wedding, like he’s mounting an attack, and only then, once he’s conquered, will Hero be his, and only his. Claude wants to talk about that aspect incessantly, and it’s a little bit creepy for Ben. He hopes Hero’s into that kind of relationship, but really doesn’t want to think about it more than he has to, but at the moment, he has to think about it more than he’d like, because attempts to shut Claude down result in Claude wondering what Hero’s dress will be like, and her face, and does Benedick think that Beatrice would tell him what the dress would be like, and Benedick updating the countdown again.  
When he’s not in the same room, he’s calling and texting, to make sure that Benedick has the timing on the flowers, and the suits, and the church, and has the speeches written.   
He does have the flowers, and the suit, and the church timing down pat, and he’s told Claude that often enough that it should have stuck by now. What is not quite there yet are the speeches. Not so much the Benedick speech. That one he has down pat. It’s full of jokes about the newsroom that will make Leo smile, and make Pete glad he came back, and the jokes are not vulgar enough to make Ursula blush, not too much, and kind enough so that Beatrice won’t need to try to throttle him on Hero’s behalf. That kind of proximity isn’t what he’s aiming for. She’s softened towards him, he thinks, as a general proposition and he’s determined to show her that he’s worth it, that he’s serious, that he wouldn’t make a game of it. Of them. After five years of doing just that, it’s a little bit of a delicate operation, but he thinks he’s doing okay on that front.   
What he doesn’t have is a speech for the groom. He has thoughts, definitely. But they’re his thoughts, and not thoughts that Claude would have about Hero. He’s running too close to the wire, this time tomorrow will be the night before, and he really should give it to Claude by then, give him a chance for a run through before the big night, although he’s fairly certain Claude’s more focussed on a performance between the sheets than reading from the sheets, but it’s the right thing to do. Benedick would like to at least try this time to do the right thing.   
The only words that come are the ones that he’d want to use himself, if it were him standing up to the insane proposition that two people could live a lifetime together and not want each other dead in a million painful ways. The ones he’d steal from Beatrice’s future groom, and he can’t think too clearly about that now, that have him and his wife fighting shoulder to shoulder for what’s theirs, for what’s right, with behind them and between them warmth and trust and love, and pride in each other, not possession. Puts the keyboard down and reaches for Shakespeare. There’s bound to be a sonnet in there somewhere that fits for Claude, because what he’s thinking, what he’s written, and he saves it carefully against some imaginary future date when he’ll need it himself, isn’t it. He needs a change.


	8. love is blindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the night before the wedding, and creatures may have been stirring, but Ben and Beatrice are not. Much.

The weekend team have kindly stepped in for the Friday news slot, for which Benedick is profoundly grateful, for keeping Claude from stepping all over the lines would have been impossible, and he imagines that Hero’s already entered into the no doubt 24 hours’ worth of preparation needed to get a bride to the altar. Claude’s making his own way, is no doubt already sinking a couple of quick ones, steady the nerves, and he’s told Benedick not to worry, that he’ll be quite entertained by the bar. Which suits Benedick fine. It’s him and the clicking of keyboards, and trying to get clear on what he’s having Claude say in front of everyone about love, and not have it sound maudlin and stupid and obvious. She’s never pretended to tolerate stupid, and she’s made it very clear that she doesn’t like obvious. Exhibit A, the attempt to compliment her belly dancing, that went down in a ball of flames, and stunned mullet silence with the cameras rolling. Can’t have that again.   
He’s given up pretending that he doesn’t want this for himself, doesn’t want Beatrice’s future to include him, and hoping like hell that she understands that the sonnet’s theirs, it’s for her, and the marriage of true minds have nothing to do with Claude and Hero. That what he’d overheard was true. It needs to be clever, and true and not overdone. He wants to present it to her, wrapped up neatly in a bow, but suspects it’ll come off like a cat presenting its person with a dead bird. Which would be horrible. So it has to be carefully done. But it has to be done, because he’s done pretending, it’s driving him slightly mad, he’s walked up and down her street more times than he’d want to admit, pulled up the texting and read it until he has it by heart, and overanalysed every conversation they’ve had until he just needs it to end. He needs to be hers.   
The blank page has filled itself when she texts, and he tells his heart it would be good to continue beating at a regular pace, and to stop being ridiculous. She’s texted him that she’ll be arriving after 6, and she didn’t have to text him at all, and surely that means something, that she’s communicated unnecessarily. It also means that he needs to press on, because that’s less than an hour away, and there’s no time left for second guessing the purple prose he’s written, there’s only time left to print it, and dress.  
He catches himself in the mirror a second, while it prints, and stops himself. He feels like he’s hiding behind the scruff, and he’s promised himself that he won’t be playing that game anymore, that she doesn’t deserve that. All or nothing, and he reaches for the razor.  
When she sees him, racing up the steps behind her, she pauses. Is she meant to be able to see him the night before, or is that just a bride and groom thing? Has his face always been that naked? She wants to run her hand down his cheek, just to see, to feel the smoothness, down his neck. And that has to be a new shirt, and she doesn’t know what she’s saying anymore. She, the mistress of the turn of phrase, the scathing retort, the clever quip, and the best she can come up with is to note that he’s changed. He must think she’s an idiot. She thinks she’s an idiot.   
In the privacy of her own room, in the absurd four poster bed built for two, very aware there’s only a connecting door separating them, she thinks about his face, and how she wants, wanted to trace the shapes around his mouth. His eyes and the way in which they’ve softened.   
Sick to the teeth of herself, she texts Hero that she’s ready and willing if she needs an emergency exit. That the taxi’ll be at the door quicker than it takes to down a shot, if she’s come to her senses.  
Hero texts her to leave it alone, and that she’s trying to get her beauty sleep, and how can Beatrice say that? Claude’s the sweetest and she loves him and tomorrow night she’ll be married and it’ll be the happiest moment of her life thank you very much.  
Beatrice puts the phone down and calls on the landline for room service. Food is a necessary distraction.   
There’s only a door between them, and it’s probably not locked. If she were Margaret, as bold as brass, she’d open the door and ask him in, room service for two, big bed and no one to share it with. And so on. It’s a springy bed. The sheets are smooth. One thing might lead to another, and then this stupid obsession would be over. Which would be good. This level of fascination can’t be sensible and it would be a fine thing to have it gone. She needs to move on.  
But he’s either a very quiet mover, silent as a fox, or he’s gone down to join in the carousing, so that when it comes, she eats with her book for company, spearing the salad and listening to it crunch in the silence. Such that when the knock comes on the door from the other side, she’s startled. Spooked, almost. It’s one thing to imagine, and it’s quite another to act.  
He’s framed in the doorway, like his news night poster, but without the beard, without the jacket, without the armour, like he belongs there, this new version that doesn’t belong to the British public, or to London, and hasn’t been seen by anyone else but her. Of course he has poetry. And of course he’s asking for her help. It’s one of her favourite sonnets, and she wonders how he knows.   
The worst thing is that if he’s planned it, and even if he hasn’t, it’s working. The three easy steps into Beatrice’s bed when she invites him in, sit down, you look awkward standing up there reciting like a teacher, he couldn’t have done better, low voices, and a marriage of true minds, and ever fix-ed marks, and she wonders what would happen if she let herself fall backwards, whether he’d fall with her. Margaret’s voice, in her ear, reminds her he’d be a bit dirty, a laugh, that they’d be good together, there’s every reason why they would, and she wants to put her hands on his shoulders and pull him down with her and see, but the small sensible part left of herself stops. It should be stopping because it’s the night before the wedding, and if it all goes wrong, they’re stuck with each other at least for the weekend, and beyond that it’s mess city, but in actuality, the small sensible voice is saying that look he’s giving her is intimate, yes, but it’s expectant, too. He’s waiting for something.   
Something from her, something she doesn’t know how to give. Best to stop until she figures out what it is, and whether she wants to give it.  
Proximity. Proximity of bodies is probably going to help drown out the sensible. With him sitting next to her on the bed, the mattress dipping them towards each other, and him smelling of ginger and spice, her mouth’s on automatic, explanations of idiom, and iambic pentameter rolling out like she’s giving a lecture now, not him, and there’s still something he’s looking at her for and she’s not giving. The poem, and his low voice all throaty and full of promise, full of expectations ends, and he says ‘we should go to bed,’ and she thinks, finally. Finally. Can almost feel his mouth on hers. Her body angled towards his, waiting.  
And he stands up. Wishes her a goodnight. And is gone.   
She can’t breathe.   
The dip in the bed is still there, where he’d been, or she’d tell herself she’d imagined it. All of it. When she wakes up, she tells herself, it’ll all be back to normal, with Ben thinking of her not at all other than a non-congenial joint host, and all of these feelings will have dispersed. It’ll be over. If it’s not over tomorrow, it’ll be over after the wedding. These things never last.  
She takes the cowards way out, and changes in the bathroom. Has a cold shower. Puts herself firmly to bed, lights out, early morning tomorrow, big day of matron of honour duties. She thinks about, but does not lock the door, a declaration of trust. Or something. An interesting night.


	9. joy comes in the morning, or at least it should

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> getting to the church on time proves a little more problematic than Benedick had anticipated

The light in his eyes wakes him, and he feels unreasonably happy. There’s glow in the room, like he’s inside a snow globe, and there’s less than 12 hours to go before the wedding. He thinks about knocking on the door to her room, but does not. Stick with the plan, Ben. Improv only when you have to. Waking her at dawn is not endearing.   
The running track around the property is wet with dew, with sunlight twinkling through it, and he’s the first person out, no London joggers, no Wessex dog walkers on this country estate, but the cows in the next pasture eye him over, with a relaxed appraising stare, and return to the tedium of grass chewing. The clouds are tinged with pink and gold, the way they should be for a postcard of a bride and groom, and that’s promising. There’s birds in the hedgerow, darting in and out, rabbits ducking for cover down the track, and bees buzzing, probably, although he’s not stopping to check, it’s the very picture of serenity and peace and he tries not to think about whether she likes mornings. He can’t remember. Today’s not meant to be about him, about her, he has duties and he needs to focus. That shirt, though, and the way in which she’d looked at him like he’d hung the moon, and all he’d done was give her someone else’s words. Granted, they were Shakespeare’s, but they weren’t his. He can’t help but look forward to the night, where she’ll hear him, through Claude’s voice, but him nonetheless.  
Bracing cold shower, quick sluice of water stripping off the sweat, and brisk rub down of the towel, he’s in his groomsman gear, tie half tied, and down the hallway before he can be tempted again, rapping on Claude’s door. It’s half seven, time for any self respecting groom to be awake, and eager for the day.  
Claude’s not, when he finally pulls the door open, and there’s clothes scattered all over the floor, the blinds pulled firmly against the sun, and sheets crumpled on the sofa, over another body, and Benedick wonders exactly what went on the night before, whether he’d been wise to leave Claude to his own devices, and instead focus on the speech. Claude’s unshaven, red eyed, and reeks of scotch. Hands a flask to Benedick, without words. It’s empty, Ben finds, when he shakes it experimentally.   
“Come on, buck up Claude. Into the shower, and get yourself ready. We’ve got a wedding today, or have you forgotten?” Ben tries to push him into the bathroom, but Claude’s more stubborn than a Clydesdale, and Ben’s forgotten that Claude’s actually a big chap, ex rugby and all that, and won’t be budged.  
“I know what day it is, Ben. Don’t push me. I’ll go when I’m ready. God, my head’s killing me. Chuck us the aspirin, Don?”   
Don levers himself up out of the sofa out of the nest of sheets and cushions, and lobs a small bottle over, hitting Benedick in the chest.  
“Sorry, there. You missed an eventful night, then Ben. Or were you getting up to your own mischief?” Don says, and Benedick tries to be patient.  
“I’ll leave the speech here on the sideboard, Claude. Read it over when you’re clean.”  
Claude is staring at the bottle.   
“Claude, read it over after the shower, yes?”  
“I’ll see how I go,” he says, and stumbles in the direction of the bathroom. There’s retching noises shortly thereafter.  
“Don, you’ll miss breakfast if you don’t go now.” Ben suggests, holding the door open.  
“Fine. I know when I’m not wanted. Good luck today, Ben. You’ll need it.” Don takes his time, and Ben’s not sure if it’s the hangover, or just that he know that Benedick wants him gone, and Don wants to annoy. It’s probably both.   
Benedick thinks about going in to check on Claude, but decides discretion is the better part of valour, and rings down for breakfast for two. Leo’s picking up the tab after all.   
The clothes are shoved into Claude’s bag. The suit’s hanging in readiness on the wardrobe, and Benedick adds the tie, and the socks, and a pair of underthings that he hopes are clean. He hopes Hero won’t be looking at the underthings, he’s trying not to. The sheets are dumped back on the bed, and the housekeeper can make it when they leave, because that’s something Benedick’s never been good at and he’s not trying for perfect, just tolerable. Tonight, presumably, the bridal suite will be fully occupied, and not this room.  
Then there’s nothing to do but wait. The shower runs, incessantly. Breakfast’s delivered, and the housemaid tells him the flowers have been delivered and are waiting downstairs. Which is the next thing on his list, and he’s running late, but Claude is probably more important to the wedding than flowers, so he waits, and eats exactly half the eggs and two thirds of the bacon, because the early bird, which was him, deserves it. He doubts that bacon’s on Claude’s mind just now in any case.  
There are no messages on his phone, other than news updates and recruitment offers. Nothing he needs to read right now.   
On Facebook, he sees that the scene in the bridal suite is much more full of life, there’s a strategically positioned shot of a corset, and behind it, Hero in a bathrobe with a glass of champagne, looking excited and nervous, and confident all in one, and behind her, Margaret with a curling iron, and Beatrice, already in her peach monstrosity which actually looks quite nice, but perhaps he’s biased, of course he is, and hair down, and an exasperated smile on her face, and he texts her.  
“Claude surly and hungover. Am hoping it wears off before 3. Getting flowers next. All under control over there?”  
There’s no reply, and Claude’s emerged, wrapped in a towel and sour expressioned.   
“Why am I doing this again, Benedick? You had the right idea in the place. No man should ever embark on the m-word, you said. I should have listened to you.” He sits, in his towel, on the couch Ben’s just stripped of sheets and empty glasses.  
Benedick looks back down at the phone, hoping for a reply, but there’s nothing.  
“You said you wanted to more than life itself. You were very eloquent on the subject. I don’t, point of fact, exactly recall that I said no man should ever embark on the m-word. I just said that the m-word was a kiss of death to the bachelor life, and you said that’s what you wanted. Look, this is just cold feet. That and Don. He never wants anyone to do anything, he’s a little killjoy and quite frankly, I don’t know why Leo keeps him on. Here. Have some nice bacon and eggs, and settle your stomach, and I’ll make sure everything’s all right. Can you do that? Good. I’m going to go down now and do the flower things. You just stay here. Back in an hour or so. Okay?”  
He leaves Claude picking at his plate. Five hours to go.  
The church is small, and grey with age, red carpet warming his feet. He’s not entirely sure the peach roses go, but it’s not his choice, and he needs to do as he’s been told, which is to hang the sash around the end of the pews, and attach the posies, and there are quite a few of them, and the job is monotonous and it takes him a while to realise he’s being watched.   
She’s standing up the front of the church, arms folded, protective, around each other. The dress is, frankly, more stunning in person. He wants to twirl her in it, let the skirt fly up, twine her arms around his neck and dance. She doesn’t look like she wants to, although she smiles at him.   
“I’ve been sent for the flowers. But I’m here really to escape. The amount of speculation about Claude’s equipment and performance levels is, quite frankly, sickening. No mortal man could possibly live up to the hype that he’s getting in there. I hope he’s ready tonight.”  
Benedick winces. “I think you should try to adjust those expectations. Either that or I’m going to have to get him sloshed and slip him a Viagra.”  
“Yikes,” Beatrice says. “Or I could just ensure Hero continues with the swilling of champagne so that she won’t notice. Unlikely, though. She’s so excited. I haven’t seen her this excited since she passed her driver’s licence. Claude had better get himself ready, because we’re on a countdown now, and she’s already about at lift off. It’s going to be odd, tomorrow, not having to worry about the wedding anymore, isn’t it?”  
“Mm.” Benedick responds. He’s not sure he’s thought beyond tonight. He’s not thinking much beyond this moment, right here, where she’s walked over to him, and is examining the bouquets. She’s close enough to kiss, or at the very least, to tell her all the things. All of the things.   
“We’ll talk after the wedding, yes? I need to get back and make sure Margaret hasn’t slipped Hero a little something to get her extra excited.” She moves closer, and she kisses him on the cheek.   
Ben closes his eyes in surprise, and when he opens them, she’s gone.

She’s not quite sure what she’s doing anymore. It’s just he’d looked so sweet, so right, in his light grey suit, surrounded by flowers, red hair glowing in the church stained glass windows, and it was only a kiss. On the cheek even. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean anything.   
The way in which he’d closed his eyes, held his breath, even. Extra endearing. Many points.  
His cheek had been smoother than expected.   
The sweetness of it carries her through the need to ensure Hero eats something, which she’s too excited to do properly, the ceremonial donning of the undergarments, and the garter, which Leo had presented to Hero as having been worn by her mother, and that’s a little bit sad and creepy all rolled into one, and the final touches of everyone’s make up, and the official photographer, and the magazine photographer who’s allowed in once they’re all, absolutely, completely ready.  
There’s then the need for the last wee before the ceremony, and the ceremonial lifting of the dress and holding it out of the way of the loo is something Hero asks her to do. Female bonding at its finest.  
“Are you happy, Bea?” Hero looks up, “I mean, today. The wedding and everything. I just want everyone to be as happy as me.”  
“Yes,” Beatrice awkwardly pats Hero’s hair with one hand, continuing to hold the dress out of the way, and trying not to be squeamish about the fact Hero’s continuing to pee. After all, she’s held her hair back while Hero’s vomited, handed her tampons under stall walls, while discussing the merits of the band, the boys, the dance, this is much the same thing. She feels vaguely maternal.  
“No, I mean, you and Ben. That’s happening, isn’t it?”  
There’s a cold flush, and Beatrice tries not to drop Hero’s dress in the loo. She no longer feels maternal. She feels exposed.  
“Really, Hero. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She lies. Of course she lies. Distract and evade. “Besides, I think the more important thing to focus on is that at the end of the aisle is going to be your about to be husband, and apparently he’s a little the worse for wear. Apparently he tied a massive one on last night, and you may need to be a little, ah, patient.”  
Hero finishes up and stands, requiring Beatrice to back away, out of the cubicle, and into the marble, where the mirrors reflect an infinity of brides, white tulle everywhere, and Hero wiggles.  
“I’m not worried about that. You saw my underwear, right? He’s going to be fine. But thanks. Thanks for everything, Bea. You’ve been a terrific bridesmaid, I mean, matron? Is that the right word?”  
Beatrice kisses her cheek, too, but a little more carefully, aware of the makeup.  
“You’ve made a terrific bride. And that’s time. Let’s be off to the church. Five minutes late, you said? Right on the dot.”  
Hero squeals. Looks at herself one last time in the mirror. Perfection.


	10. stealing heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not the way home

The church is full, hats and stiff dresses and stiff collars and the local dignitaries, senior media folk and the who’s who of Wessex. The posies are neatly tied at the end of every pew, warm with orange overtones that Hero insists on calling peach, there’s a white clad man at the altar waiting to say the magic words, two men in grey looking anxious, and at the end of the aisle, waiting for Hero to start, the organ heralding her entrance, Beatrice remembers kissing his cheek.   
She doesn’t regret it.   
Hero is clutching Leo’s arm, letting him take the lead one last time, a pretence that she needs it, Hero’s ready, she’s more than capable of marching the aisle down to Claude on her own terms, as Beatrice has pointed out, but Hero’s kinder to her father than is sensible, in Beatrice’s eyes, and Leo looks terribly happy to be there. Hero is beaming, ear to ear, cat who’s stolen the cream and she’s beautiful, bright eyed, white under the veil and white tulle buffeting around her hips and how could anyone say no to that face, ever? She’s glorious, and Beatrice is content.  
Up the aisle, trailing Hero, Beatrice nods and smiles to the BBC producer she knows, the rest of the Wessex tonight crew, some of Hero’s mad school friends and there, on the other side of an uncharacteristically stone faced Claude, is Benedick. His eyes should be twinkling at her, soft and expectant, and they’re not, he looks worried. Nerves, then, for Claude. She’s unsure why, it’s not like there are many lines in this bit he can fumble, that and the minister prompts the nervous. Ben’d been right to be passing on the warning then, and she wishes she’d taken it more seriously.   
Too late now, as Hero is handed off, and the two step forward, out of reach.   
She sees Hero smile sweetly at Claude, and the blank face that turns towards her is too obvious. There’s definitely more wrong than a hangover.  
And it’s too late now to stop it.  
The minister starts the ritual right, with the formulaic question, whether Claude and Hero come here today to be married, which Leo leaps on, and Beatrice pulls him back into line, whispering that it’s for Claude and Hero to answer, and Leo’s flustered, and embarrassed, and it’s not a good start.  
Then there’s the second ritual question, whether anyone knows of any lawful impediment, any reason why Claude and Hero should not join together in holy matrimony, and when Claude answers “I do,” and the church titters, at first she thinks he’s joking, that Benedick has wound him up to give the solemn answer a little early, until she meets Benedick’s eyes, and he’s shocked, and she feels her stomach clench tight.   
Claude’s serious. Leo lets go her arm, and steps half forward, to flank his daughter. Beatrice can’t see her face, but she knows that posture, that’s the feet set apart, ready for a fight, the hold my purse Bea, and then the ugly starts in earnest, when the minister asks Claude what he means.  
“Not to be married to this tart. Who sleeps with someone else the night before her wedding? In the same house as the man she’s supposed to marry? Go on, then, can you deny that you met up with Don last night?” Claude’s pointing in the direction of the pews, and there he is, Don with the smug slimy face that Beatrice would love to punch right now. This is false, she wants to say. Every bit of it false. Leo, hand on Hero’s shoulder, prompts her. “Answer him, pet. Put this nonsense to bed.”  
Hero’s quiet in her answer, but clear. “Yes, I met Don last night, for a chat. That’s it. I swear, Claude.”  
Calm. Composed. Beatrice is strangely proud. And strangely sad. She shouldn’t have been in her bedroom, with her thoughts on a dream, and a pretty poem. She should have stuck with Hero, and then this tissue, this spiderweb that she knows in her gut is Don’s spinning, couldn’t have been spun. There’s all the faces in the church, blending into one. Everyone Hero’s ever looked up to, all listening. Leo’s fatherly hand drops away, leaving Hero alone.  
“You tell me then that you’ve never slept with him, and tell me to my face. I want to watch you lie.” Beatrice can see the spittle flying. Watches Ben take a step forward, hand on Claude’s shoulder, like it’s happening in slow motion, and him shake it off, and she wants to cry. Finds that she is, but can’t bring herself to stop.  
Hero is less calm, but no less clear. “Yes, I slept with Don. But that’s all in the past, and it all happened before you and I even started dating. Anything else is a lie.”   
Beatrice can hear the intake of breath from the crowd as one. Sees, from the corner of her eye, the phones held up to capture every excruciating detail that will be played out in the press by her colleagues at the less dignified stations, publications.   
From where she stands, she can see the smile on Don’s face, strangely triumphant, and also the sneer on Claude’s face, vindicated vindictive righteous prick that he’s being.   
Claude folds his arms. “You lie, and you’ve broken my heart. I want nothing more to do with you.” Turns on his heel, and walks the length of the aisle and out of the church.   
Hero sobs, and sinks into the pew. From the corner of her eye, she sees Benedick, and Margaret shoo the crowd out like disgruntled chickens deprived of their feed, but she’s at Hero’s feet, holding her knees, telling her it will be all right, lying through her teeth, patting her hair, and holding it back out of her face like she’s being ill, until Leo’s hand, rough on her shoulder pulls her back.  
“Hero. Hero love, get up. You can’t stay here. Come back up to the room, and we’ll take it from there. I don’t care what’s happened, what that silly man’s said. You’re my daughter, and I love you. That’s all.” Leo’s gentle voice cuts through and Hero’s arms fly around his neck, and they stand as one, family united, and Beatrice is glad that there’s that, at least, for her.   
“Oh, Dad,” Hero says presently, when the crying abates, “I’ve left mascara on your shoulder. I’m so sorry.”  
“Don’t be damn ridiculous. Now come on. Beatrice’ll fix things down here, and we’ll deal with things up there,” and Leo looks up at her, and Beatrice nods. Of course she will. Beatrice sees that Leo’s cried too, and wishes she could fix everything. She can’t. Hero pats her on the shoulder as she leaves with her father.  
Beatrice looks at the church. Fixing this means unpicking all the flowers, all the ribbons, all the things that made Hero smile happily when she walked in half an hour prior, had it really only been half an hour? It’s too much to not think about, and she stands, wondering how Claude had gone so quickly from the ‘sweet man’ Hero had fallen for into the sour one, believing that Hero would cherish a secret passion for Don of all people. She wants him dead, suddenly. Hero’s career with all the media dignitaries is surely now dead in the water. All her friends, all Leo’s friends, and all the dirty washing that was none of their business, and Hero has that to face now when she emerges from the room, no matter what spin there is to put on things. Not dead, exactly, but as damaged as Hero is now, with as many obstacles as she’s going to have to face, and not least the unfairness of the accusations, because Hero doesn’t lie. Has never lied, unless you count sweet talking bouncers into letting a seventeen year old in under the guise of being eighteen, and Beatrice doesn’t. She wants him to feel that gut wrenching sob that emerged from Hero as he left the church. There’s no way that she can make that happen.   
She should start on the church and the undoing of the wedding. She can’t move.


	11. the good bit and the bad bit, because that's life for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn't the right time. Sometimes there's no right time, and you have to act anyway

She stands, weeping, at the front of the church, and he can’t have that, shoulders down, chest heaving, eyes looking resolutely forward at the stained glass window, light piercing through and hitting the altar. Hero’s heart is breaking, broken, and he gets that. It’s a terrible, horrible thing that Claude’s done just now, and he can’t even begin to process it, all the people twittering away about it as he shooed them out like a flock of pigeons, relishing the unexpected, who would have thought it, she looks such a nice girl too, I knew her mother you know? Claude, the soft-hearted man who wouldn’t shut up about his love for Hero, the drinking partner who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and that stonefaced automaton who had pushed Hero back into her father’s arms have nothing to do with each other. Not the same person, except they are, and Ben doesn’t, can’t, understand. He can’t reconcile the two.   
Do the next thing, which is defuse. He can’t bear it if she breaks too.  
“You’ll get dehydrated, you know, if you keep that up,” he tries, but she doesn’t laugh.  
“I’ve cried all this time, and I’m going to keep crying a while longer, I’m going to guess,” she sniffs.   
He pats himself down, but there’s no handkerchief to be had, and he watches, helpless and there’s a tear dripping off her chin, and it’s awful. “I don’t want you to cry anymore, Beatrice.”   
She wipes her cheek with the back of her hand, like a schoolgirl. “Oh, don’t worry. It’s not your fault. You can’t stop this level of male stupidity. It’s a special brand of chauvinistic pigheaded fool, and Hero in no way deserved that. You can’t fix that for her.”  
“Well,” he steps a little closer. “I’d like to try.”  
She looks at him, quizzical. That arched eyebrow. The quirked lips. The tear tracks, and the smeared mascara. He wants nothing more than to see if he can make her smile. There’s a cliff waiting, and he jumps off it.  
“D’you know, there’s nothing in the world I love as much as you. Isn’t that strange?” He doesn’t recognise his own voice without the levity. Her lips are parted. Perhaps the mocking’s about to start. There you are, Benedick, always with the inappropriate. Or, perhaps, Benedick, you could save the sweet talking until after we’ve fixed the hapless Hero’s problems.  
She says none of these things. Her eyes soften, and there’s a shy smile. It’s not a smile he’s seen on her before. He feels his brain taking a mental snapshot, for later.   
She says, after a time, “It would be strange, indeed, if I were to say that I had no idea what you were talking about. If I were to say that I didn’t love you.”  
There’s that tachycardia again. He can’t remember any of his carefully written speech, it’s all evaporated, with Claude’s betrayal, and the chaos of the church congregation spraying out into the yard, and the cars, and squawking like geese in a pen, and there’s nothing left in his head. Nothing but her.  
“I mean, I’ve never said it and meant it. Not like this. I love you so much that I think it’s sending me mad.” He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Can he hold her hands now? Is that a thing that people do at this point?  
“I love you so much I can hardly breathe,” she whispers, like the church is still full. It’s a secret. It’s his.  
The filter’s gone completely, he’s stepped in or she has and her body’s warm against his, in his arms, his. In her ear, he whispers back, “Tell me what you want. I’d do anything for you. Anything.”  
She pushes back far enough to see his face, really see. There’s tears in her eyes again, and she’s deadly serious. “Kill Claude.”  
He shakes his head, clears his ears, and there’s now a gap between them. “I think that might be a little too far. I mean, what he’s done is unforgiveable, yes, but…”  
She pushes him away, completely. There’s the look, the one designed to reduce the subject to a pile of smouldering ashes, and the soft smile he’d stolen has gone. “I should have known. It’s all too easy, for you, men, I mean, to say things, and not mean them. I’m sure Claude said he loved her. Would stand by her, and ever be faithful, and this, this utter act of cowardice is how he actually behaves. She should have known. Know them by their actions, not by their words, is what my mother says, said. If I were a man, Claude would know by my actions that he was singularly wrong, inappropriate, a cowardly fool, I’d eat his heart, his heart Benedick, in the marketplace. For everyone to see. Why would you not, I mean surely he had a phone, Ben, surely he knew which room she was in, why would he not just call her? Talk it through, talk it over, let her tell him what happened? It’s her story to tell, Ben, and he’s not interested. How the hell were they going to even live together, if he’s not prepared to ask? Too damn proud to ask and instead he smears her like this. Leaves her at the altar!”  
He needs to move. Needs to act, answer the call to arms, blood thundering in his ears. He can’t think.  
“Don’t you dare walk away from me while I’m shouting at you!”   
Her voice comes from behind him, and he strides back. She looks startled, and happy, all at once. He’s never been a coward. Not this kind of coward, anyway.   
Her lips are warm, and part against his, and the flowers crush between them. She tastes of nothing but her, no peaches, or roses, or vanilla, just her, and that’s more than enough, and when he pulls back, she sighs.   
“I believe her. Believe you. I’m going to do my best to make this right. Make him do the right thing. I love you.” His mouth can’t help but half crooked smile at that, because she’d kissed him back. She’d said it too. It might not have been the pretty words that he’d planned, not the right moment, but she’d said it too. The rest of his particular world might be going to hell, but she’d said it too.  
Then he makes himself walk away, because he could spend the rest of the day there, looking at her face and telling her all the stupid things he could to make her smile, and it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.  
The right thing to do isn’t nearly as much fun. Back at the guesthouse, no one’s left, and there’s a thrum of expectation in the air. People in serious outfits and serious hats, sipping serious gin and tonics, and Benedick doesn’t have to listen to know that they’re glorying in the total drama of it all. Hero’s collapse, and Claude’s wild accusations, and the only thing better than a wedding is an explosive breakup played out in public and on which people can comment, and they do, and they are.   
Claude’s not in his suite. He’s left it in a worse state than before, sofa in cushioned pieces on the floor like a kid playing forts, and the maid comes in, half apologetic, and he’s half apologetic too. They should have still been at the church. Claude should not have done this.  
He’s not in the lobby, and he hasn’t checked out. Which makes no sense, because if he’d done what Claude’d done, he’d have been long gone. But then, he’d have never done what Claude had done. He’s sure of that. The receptionist wishes him a pleasant afternoon.   
He pauses, as Beatrice passes through the lobby, juggling the long white boxes, full of flowers. She’s not crying anymore, and she doesn’t look at him, face set and stern. He’d better find Claude before she does. Just in case.  
Claude’s not in the pool room, but Peter is, jacket off, thumbing through his phone, no doubt fielding press in the absence of Leo, who must still be upstairs, and he has no idea how you console a Hero in this particular instance, but assumes it’s going to take a while. Pete will do. “He’s in the living room, getting sloshed. I’ll come with you, then. You know, just in case.”  
“Cheers, then. Thanks very much,” Ben says. They move with purpose, through the hallway, gathering a following as they go, an audience hungry for more blood.   
The parlour is trying for dignified, all stately bookcases with gilt-edged books, delicate figurines that someone cared for, silver awards in a glass box, framed landscapes on the walls. There’s the horrified onlookers, sipping tea, and gin and tonics, and in an abbreviated semi-circle, not too close, just in case of spontaneous outbreaks for violence. In the focal point is Claude, bleary eyed, clutching a drink in his hand, leaning on a flower patterned sofa, which he hasn’t demolished yet, and close by him is Don, mouth turned down, which makes no sense. Even if what Claude’d said was true, why then, for the love of god, would he choose Don as a companion in which to drown his sorrows? Don, who Claude thinks has shagged his girl the night before? Ben’s trying to think, but the need to shake some sense into Claude is overpowering.   
He only knocks over one knick-knack on the path to Claude, which Pete catches and hands off to a chap he vaguely places as a BBC rep, but he can’t think about that now. There’ll be consequences, but the consequences aren’t as important as doing the right thing.  
“Oh Ben. Wondered when you’d turn up. Dig in, son, the boss is paying. Get mine in too, would you? Don, what’ll you have, another scotch? Course he will. And a scotch for Don. Make it a good one. For my good mate, Don.” Claude stands, somewhat wobbly.   
Benedick takes a deep breath. Tries to channel his inner dignified statesman, to try to cut through the alcoholic fug, explain it to Claude in simple terms his simple brain will understand. Gives up.  
His arm bar across Claude’s neck, and Claude’s head bouncing back off the wall is slightly more satisfying than polite words would have been.   
“Ow, Ben, that bloody hurt.”  
“It was meant to. You’ve been a complete bounder, you know that? What you’ve done to Hero is on the far side of wrong. You must see that. You do see that, don’t you?” Ben feels the crowd at his back pulse with energy, look, a fight, friends turning on each other, how exciting, I do love a county wedding.   
“No. I don’t see that. She slept with Don. Last night. She betrayed me, she deserves this. Ow, stop it.”   
Ben’s other hand, down by his side, tightens into a fist. “Deserves this. He told you that, right? Look at him.” It’s satisfaction itself to dig the elbow in, push Claude’s head to the side, force it over to take in that Don is, indeed, half smiling. “Look at him. He’s lying to you. No idea why, but he is. Look at that face. Think, Claude.”  
Ben loosens the neck, and steps a half pace back, into a table. Sees Peter steady it, out of the corner of his eye.  
“No,” says Claude. “No, no, no. Don’s my friend. He tells me the truth.” Rubs his neck, loosens his tie further.  
There’s a movement at the end of the hall, and there’s the security guards, Dumplestilkstin and Humbleberry, Ben’s never really got their names straight, making their way through the interested congregation, and the fussy antique tables to flank Benedick. A pleasure dreamed not of.   
“Actually, if I may,” the older one interjects. “We think there’s been some naughtiness afoot. Don John, we arrest you in the name of the law.”  
Don snorts. “You aren’t police. You aren’t even really security guards.”  
The two confer. “We are going to take you on our own recognisance to the local police station. We have CCTV footage of you interfering with phones, and photos, and Hero’s bag, and you are a very nefarious upstanding fellow.”  
Claude looks thoroughly confused, and he waves his hands around for a moment, right to left, left to right, looking from the security guards to Benedick, back to the security guards, and over to Don, and back again. Benedick can see the moment where it clicks over from Don, my Good Friend and Trusted Advisor to There Is A Reasonable Chance I Have Screwed Up, because Claude goes a little whiter, and steps towards Benedick.  
“Benedick, I don’t understand. Oh god. What have I done.”  
“You.” Hero is at the side door now, an avenging angel in white, with jaw set, and a fist set for action, and he’s glad he didn’t punch Claude now, because every woman deserves the satisfaction of fighting for herself, and he’s certain Hero’s more than capable.   
“Hero, oh my god, I am so sorry. I’m so so sorry, and I’ll make it up to you, just say you’ll forgive me, I love you, oh god, Hero,” and Hero silences Claude with a wave of her hand, like magic.  
“I want to talk to him. To Don. Because I don’t understand why you’d lie like that.” Hero seems calm. Poised. Her makeup’s unsmudged, or reapplied, the perfect bride once more.   
She steps her way through the tables, her dress nudging the smaller ones out of the way.   
“Tell me why, Don, because I really want to know.” She’s reached her goal, a position where she can eyeball them both, looking up at them with an expression of distaste, a scientist with specimens to examine.  
There’s a pause. A stillness to the room, a hush of the conversations, a cessation of the tinkling of the tea cups, the afternoon drinkies.   
“Because,” and Don draws it out, relishing the attention, “Because I love you. And you said we should just be friends. And it hurt. And I wanted you to hurt too. Because I love you.”  
In a strange sort of way, Benedick can understand. Not sympathise, not excuse. But understand. Nothing’s fair in love. He wonders when Beatrice had entered the room, because there she is at the periphery, watching, on tenterhooks, waiting for the something worse, because that’s the way the day’s going.   
He’s watching her, trying to see if things are better, or worse, or at least if she’s still crying, and misses the point at which Hero springs on Don, hitting him ineffectually with her palm, once, twice, three times. He doesn’t miss the point at which Don shoves her brutally away, and she flies across the room, and into the faux marble pillar, nor the point at which she puts her hand up to her head, and it comes back red, too bright, and her eyes roll back and she collapses to the ground.  
The stillness of the room explodes into motion, mobile phones are retrieved from pockets and emergency services rung, Beatrice holds her hand, and Leo her head, and Claude stands over them all, loudly proclaiming his love for her, and that he’d give his life, his very life to make sure that she lives, and it’s at that point that Benedick punches him.   
In the gut, rather than the pretty boy face, which would have been much more dramatic, but the gut silences Claude effectively, at least until Hero is moved onto a stretcher, and carried away, Leo by her side, and then Claude brings out the sobs once more.   
Benedick leaves him to make his own way to the hospital. Somehow, he’s ended up in a taxi with Peter and Beatrice both, and Peter either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t comment when he takes her hand, and doesn’t give it back for the twenty minutes it takes to drive there. She doesn’t look at him, but she holds onto it, all the way, like he’s her lifeline.   
Her hand feels right in his. He doesn’t let go. He won’t let go.

**Author's Note:**

> BBC version, where Beatrice is a news anchor, and Claude is as ineffectual a sports commentator as he was a soldier.


End file.
